We Had No Plans

It was Uncle Eddie’s final send off done Southwood-Smith way style.  If we can’t do it with complete class we ditch formality and go for a laugh.  Even at a funeral.  And so, the girls carried the casket.  Oh, the dresses and heels and scarves with hands on polls, made gorgeous casket bearers.  Looking down from the cosmos, what the pastor called “his perfect heaven,” Uncle Eddie with a sip from his flask (a hand-made Elmer’s glue bottle), a pull on a Camel and a wink at Cousin Diane, who he nicknamed “BT,” said, “Don’t crush my cigarettes kid,” and smiled.

Within ten days my Aunt Pat had been buried and now my uncle.  Both married to Southwood-Smith’s, one to my father’s youngest brother and the other to his only sister.  The entire Florida contingent plus cousin Donna stationed in El Salvador arrived in upstate New York for Uncle Eddie’s funeral.  We attend funerals for the living, as much to honor the dead.  Our family memories came pouring out of us as quickly as the tears and laughter.  There were so many of both I was a desert for two days after.

At some funerals, particularly when people are exhausted, perhaps from two sequential family deaths and travelling mercies, guards come down, and facades melt away.  Immediate intimacy.  We freely share our financial status’, our broken dreams, the reality behind the masks we wore in our 20s and especially 30s; how anxiety works on us, what hurts, that we view one another as role models, the dreams we shoot for, knowing they may fail, and this is the tough one because if they do fail we might be embarrassed when next we meet.  But it doesn’t matter because everything we share is done with trust.  A funeral can be a unique experience.  The bits are at their best.

Our last name was Smith.  In Jamaica on my grandfather’s side the Southwood would float around in people’s names.  My father’s oldest brother was born Norris Southwood Mayer Smith.  My grandmother, who Uncle Eddie called “The Battleax” and later in life “The Dragon Lady” (he could get away with this because Eddie was fearless, also the name of his second cat), decided she didn’t want the Southwood to just float around and demanded my grandfather hyphenate the Southwood to the Smith.  Rubber-stamped for approval the first son was re-christened Norris Mayer Southwood-Smith. 

When my father, Harrington Ovenelle Corrinaldi Southwood-Smith, all the sons and daughter were given both odd and long names, came to the United Stated in 1952 he dropped the Southwood.  We’ll never know why because cancer took him from us on November 17^th, 1986.  After the marriage proposal, my mother found out his last name wasn’t Smith and demanded he return the Southwood to its rightful place.  Thank god.  I think my entire life would have been different, quite possibly ruined, if I’d been forced to live it as Debbie Smith. Mom got a round of applause from the clan. Apparently the formation and retention of our name has been an ongoing battle.  Appropriately initiated by “The Battleax.” 

“We had no plans,” Aunt Winnie told the seated crowd of mourners gathered round her at a folding table during the post funeral reception held at her church, a 150 year old Episcopalian Church in Tappan, N.Y.  In 1957 My Uncle Eddie informed her, “I’m going to kidsnap you.”  She asked, “Is this a proposal?”  His reply, “I’m going to kidsnap you.”  Proposal made, no kneeling, no ring, purely the understanding they were going to be married. 

“You see Eddie hated that I was dating other fellows,” she told her crowd of folding chairs.  Albert Edwards, known as Al to friends and Eddie to family, was a street-smart Italian kid from the Bronx always in possession of a quick wit, a pack of Camels and a Chrysler. They both worked for NYC’s MTA she a secretary and he an engineer.  Albert worked on New York’s subway lines until he retired.  That’s where cupid’s arrow pierced him, but according to Winsome not her, “Oh I couldn’t stand him!  He was such a pest,” she bemoaned.  Eddie turned the lights on and off in the elevator when he found them alone.  Standing by her side he’d bump her elbow while she was working on a six carbon copy report.  He’d taunt her, “You’re gonna make a mistake.  You’re gonna make a mistake,” until eventually she did.  You can’t hit delete and start over on six carbon copies.  Through gritted teeth she cried, “Oh, he would make me so angry!” 

“Didn’t you have a crush on him?” I asked.  “Oh no, I just hated him.  He was from the Bronx.  I would NEVER date someone from the Bronx.”  The two began dating.  “He thought once we dated he would be the only one,” she explained.  Either this was a 1950’s mentality, or it was how an Italian kid from the Bronx felt about territory, or most probably it derived from what my Aunt Winsome looked like when she was dropped from Kinston onto American soul.  With not the slightest note of exaggeration, she was the embodiment of a pin-up girl.  Thick dark hair, exotic brown eyes, full lips, a Barbie doll waist and everywhere else Monroe curves. She was a dish. Eddie made a habit of unannounced visits to the Astoria apartment shared with her mother, Winnie complained, “He thought he could come visit whenever he wanted.”

One evening there was a motorcycle outside the building.  It was belonged to a competitor.  “I don’t know how he found out where this fellow lived, but he paid him a visit…” and what followed were euphemisms for the threats Eddie made should this man ever darken Winsome’s door again.  A murmur erupted from the crowd of the threat sans euphemisms.  Apparently, Winnie’s audience forgot they were seated in a church.  Curious as to his abrupt departure she eventually found the cause of her absentee suitor, and so did her mother.

The Dragon Lady had a few choice words for Albert Edwards from the Bronx.  “Winnie leave the room.  I need to speak with Albert.” Instructions stringently issued, Eddie was boldly informed that if this manner of behavior continued a commitment would be forthcoming.  These words were not minced, my grandmother was known for many things, the best rice and peas on the planet being one, demands met being another.

“We had no plans.”  The refrain repeated again and again.  The kidsnapping was kept secret for a year and the two sweethearts opened a joint bank account.  Albert Edwards did not want mama to know.  “She’ll make a big deal out of it.  She’ll cook for weeks and invite everyone.  I don’t want any of that.”  I don’t know what Aunt Winnie wanted.  She lived almost her entire life torn between the two.  They never had kids.  Didn’t need them.  With a mother prone to illness and a husband prone to bad habits her caretaking instincts were fulfilled.

Two weeks before the wedding Winnie let mama in on the secret.  Once informed Millicent left the apartment and went running down 31^st St., unabashedly hysterical. Winnie right behind her yelling out to console her, “It’s going to be alright ma he’ll take good care of me!” “No, you can’t do this to me!  Two weeks!!!  Two weeks!!! You tell me you are marrying in two weeks?  What kind of daughter would do that to her mother?”  As they passed the tailors and small delicatessens, the liquor stores, the neighborhood kids sitting on stoops, people leaning out of windows over fire escapes all watching to see what the street drama was about, this time.  Down the streets tears, puddles of tears, accusations and excuses raced past like the Q train above them. 

My dad liked Eddie.  Although, they fought like mad dogs.  They argued over chess games.  Sometimes having to be separated at family dinners.  They even fought over issues they agreed on. The altercations between Hal and Eddie, like saying grace before meals and my Grandmother’s rice and peas, were a fundamental part of Southwood-Smith life.  Still, he gave his only sister away on that day. The tiny wedding took place.  Millicent wasn’t happy, but she did obstinately cook, for a full two weeks.  Millie was a milliner and I doubt she had time to make the hat and veil for her only daughter.  She did make my mother’s, who asked for a tiara and ended up with a crown, perhaps my aunt got lucky.  In any case the food would have to suffice.

On the day of the funeral, placed beside Uncle Eddie’s casket was a formally posed wedding photograph.  The photograph was elegant.  It was beautiful.  Everyone praised it.  Hence the tale began. “We had no plans, and never thought to have a photographer present. It never crossed our minds.”  Someone in the wedding party told them they needed a formal, posed photograph. As they had no plans, they skipped the entire ritual of wedding photos. There were a few casual Polaroid flashes here and there, but not one traditional shot of the bride and groom (not even in this blog).  “As we were driving down Elmhurst Blvd. we saw a photographer’s studio and went in.  The man agreed to take some photos. That’s where the photograph come from.” They posed, he in his suit, dark Italian hair brillo-creamed back into a small pompadour and she in her white, conservative wedding dress. That photograph is all she has to capture the ritual of her wedding day, one beautiful photograph and her memories.

Afterwards, “we had no plans.” No honeymoon planned.  No tickets in hand.  No hotel booked in Niagara Falls.  Instead they drove across the George Washington Bridge, in a 1952 Chrysler because that’s the only car my uncle ever owned, no matter what the decade there was always a 1952 Chrysler to be found somewhere on their property, as a matter of fact he never bought a Chrysler that wasn’t made after 1960.  When my Aunt Winnie had her own new car parked outside their driveway my mother asked, “Does he ever let you drive anything other then a Chrysler?”  No.

Eventually Eddie pulled up next to a cop and asked, “Where is there a nice hotel around here?”  The honeymoon took place for three nights wherever that hotel was, in New Jersey just over the GW Bridge.  As far away as that 1952 Chrysler took them from mom in Queens, and whatever else they wanted to leave behind.  Once back in New York they both returned to work, homeless, living in a hotel in the Bronx.  “We had no plans.”  Eventually they found an efficiency apartment in the Bronx, and lived in it for eight years.  In every manner Winnie had recovered from her Bronx phobia.  In 1966 they moved to the house in Sparkill, N.Y. where for the next 50 years my Uncle Eddie lived until his death on April 26^th, 2015 and where Aunt Winnie will now live alone.

We are a family of 1950’s, 1970’s and 1980’s Jamaican immigrants; my brother and I are the only Southwood-Smith’s that have been born on American soil.  The Cousins, as we have come to be called, have a plethora of names beginning with “D’s,” Diane, Deborah, Donna, Denise, David, and Daryl. After 51 years of life on this planet I finally figured out that I have a family, steeped in stories, tradition and many “D’s.”  A family filled with warmth, love and acceptance.  I feel utterly and completely stupid that it has taken me 51 years and one long funeral to recognize them.  We have a name that means something.  Southwood-Smith.  One other thing, even if I have no plans, my family comes with a lifetime warranty of companionship.

 Dedicated to Aunt Winsome Edwards (after all it is her story)